The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [24]
9. The gathering made merry until midnight, and then departed, leaving the bride and her family to sleep.
10. When the bride and all the household rose the next morning, they found that the trousseau and all the gifts had been stolen.
11. The bride and her family were in despair, for every last penny of what they owned had been lavished on the trousseau and gifts.
12. When Judge Adasnes heard this report he went back with the bride’s father to the house to inspect the scene of the robbery.
13. He saw that the walls of the garden in which the house stood were too high to scale.
14. He saw that there was only one possible place of entry, a crevice in the wall where an orange tree grew, covered with a thorny creeper that guarded the crevice like a fence.
15. Adasnes summoned the bridegroom, and the neighbours, and the servants in the neighbours’ houses, and all who had been at the celebration that previous night;
16. All the menfolk who had been at the celebration he gathered, and instructed them to roll up the sleeves of their shirts to the elbow, and their trousers to the knee.
17. When they had all done so Adasnes pointed at the musician, and at his servant. ‘Arrest these men,’ he said, ‘for they are the thieves.’
18. On the arms and legs of the musician and his servant were scratches from the thorny creeper round the orange tree, each like a message of guilt to the judge’s eye.
19. Seeing that he was caught, the musician’s servant fell to his knees and confessed to the crime that he and his master had committed.
20. Adasnes said, ‘The greater crime is committed by he who leads another into crime. A mitigation of punishment is owed to him who confesses freely, and is repentant.’
21. They searched the musician’s house and found all the stolen goods, which were safely restored to the bride in time for the wedding.
22. Adasnes exiled the musician’s servant, but sent the musician to prison, without his harp so that he could not charm the guards with music to let him free.
23. ‘Such was the wisdom of my friend Adasnes the judge,’ said Charicles, and he brushed a tear from his eye.
Chapter 9
1. ‘Tell me more of the judge’s wisdom,’ the stranger asked, ‘because tales of wisdom, along with tales of courage and kindness, are among our best guides in life.’
2. ‘Then I will tell you how Adasnes judged the case of the necklace and the nobleman,’ Charicles replied, and recounted as follows.
3. There was once a broker of this city, a man of tried honesty, who was entrusted with the care of a beautiful and very valuable necklace,
4. Whose owner asked him to sell it for five hundred pieces of gold. A nobleman holding high office under the king came to the broker’s shop,
5. Saw the necklace, admired it, and coveted it; and offered three hundred gold pieces for it.
6. The broker told him that the owner required five hundred gold pieces, and would accept nothing less.
7. ‘Come with me to my house,’ the nobleman said. ‘Bring the necklace to show my wife, and I will consider the price.’
8. The broker went with the nobleman to his house, and waited at the gate when the latter went indoors.
9. There he waited until dusk, and then long into the night; but no one came out to him, or answered his ringing on the bell.
10. After a sleepless and troubled night he went back to the nobleman’s mansion and rang the bell.
11. This time he was admitted. ‘Buy the necklace for the price asked,’ he said to the nobleman, ‘or return the necklace to me.’
12. ‘What necklace?’ asked the nobleman, feigning surprise before those who stood about them in the reception hall. ‘I know of no necklace. You are trying to trick me; leave at once.’
13. So the broker went to Adasnes the judge, and laid the case before him. Adasnes sent for the nobleman, and when he had arrived, he instructed him to remove one of his shoes, and then to wait in another room.
14. Adasnes gave the shoe to the nobleman’s servant, who had been standing outside, and said, ‘Take this to your master’s wife, and say, My master asks for